HSL stands for hue, saturation, and lightness, and is also often called HLS. HSV stands for hue, saturation, and value, and is also often called HSB (B for brightness). A third model, common in computer vision applications, is HSI, for hue, saturation, and intensity. However, while typically consistent, these definitions are not standardized, and any of these abbreviations might be used for any of these three or several other related cylindrical models. (For technical definitions of these terms, see below.)

In each cylinder, the angle around the central vertical axis corresponds to "hue", the distance from the axis corresponds to "saturation", and the distance along the axis corresponds to "lightness", "value" or "brightness". Note that while "hue" in HSL and HSV refers to the same attribute, their definitions of "saturation" differ dramatically. Because HSL and HSV are simple transformations of device-dependent RGB models, the physical colors they define depend on the colors of the red, green, and blue primaries of the device or of the particular RGB space, and on the gamma correction used to represent the amounts of those primaries. Each unique RGB device therefore has unique HSL and HSV spaces to accompany it, and numerical HSL or HSV values describe a different color for each basis RGB space.

Color space

A color space is a specific organization of colors. In combination with physical device profiling, it allows for reproducible representations of color, in both analog and digital representations. A color space may be arbitrary, with particular colors assigned to a set of physical color swatches and corresponding assigned names or numbers such as with the Pantone system, or structured mathematically, as with Adobe RGB or sRGB. A color model is an abstract mathematical model describing the way colors can be represented as tuples of numbers (e.g. triples in RGB or quadruples in CMYK); however, a color model with no associated mapping function to an absolute color space is a more or less arbitrary color system with no connection to any globally understood system of color interpretation. Adding a specific mapping function between a color model and a reference color space establishes within the reference color space a definite "footprint", known as a gamut, and for a given color model this defines a color space. For example, Adobe RGB and sRGB are two different absolute color spaces, both based on the RGB color model. When defining a color space, the usual reference standard is the CIELAB or CIEXYZ color spaces, which were specifically designed to encompass all colors the average human can see.